Impact Of Emotional Intelligence on Work-Life Balance among It Professionals – A Hypothesis-Based Study with Reference to it Professionals in Chennai

Abstract

Emotional Intelligence (EI), the ability to recognise, understand and regulate one’s own emotions and those of others, has increasingly been linked to the way employees manage the competing demands of work and personal life. The Information Technology (IT) industry, with its tight delivery schedules, long working hours, client-driven deadlines and rapidly changing work environment, offers a suitable setting for examining this relationship. This hypothesis-based study examines Emotional Intelligence and Work-Life Balance (WLB) among 300 IT professionals in Chennai. Seven null hypotheses were formulated and tested using data collected through a structured questionnaire covering five dimensions of Emotional Intelligence (Self-Awareness, Self-Regulation, Motivation, Empathy and Social Skills) and three dimensions of Work-Life Balance (Work Interference with Personal Life, Personal Life Interference with Work, and Work-Personal Life Enhancement). Percentage analysis, mean, median and mode, the independent samples t-test, one-way ANOVA, two-way ANOVA and the Mann-Whitney U test were applied. The hypotheses relating to gender differences in EI and WLB, the main effects of gender and marital status on WLB, and the difference in WLB by marital status were rejected, whereas the hypotheses relating to work experience and the gender × marital status interaction were not rejected. The findings offer practical implications for human resource practices aimed at strengthening emotional competencies and improving work-life outcomes among IT employees